FDA bungles tomato industry with Salmonella scare

After tying up the tomato industry unnecessarily, the FDA now triumphs its dubious discovery of the origin of the Salmonella poisoning: a Mexican pepper farm!

This is utterly pathetic, if not fraudulent on the part of the bureaucrats. A thousand people getting sick out of millions of North Americans is no reason to stop the entire shipment of all tomatoes — even if tomatoes were the source — because consumers should be responsible for washing their own food.

Is this the best the FDA can do? It reminds me of the recent Batman movie where Alfred recounts how an entire forest in Burma was burned just to catch a jewel thief hiding within its midst.

Building what in Afghanistan? not a pipeline!

I do not believe what I am hearing from our Defence Minister today:

“We are not there specifically to protect a pipeline across Afghanistan.”
The minister said it’s incidental to the role Canadians are already playing.
—-SNIP—-
“Our primary purpose there is to build that country to the point where they can walk on their own and then we’re coming home.”

Oh, really? What exactly needs to be built, pray tell? I thought Canadian soldiers were fighting terrorists. I thought they were preventing terrorism from coming to Canada. Now, it seems more evident that we have to be a little more flexible our goals and expectations. The soldiers may as well incidentally help secure a pipeline while they are at it, I suppose.

Unwittingly, Ray Henault, Canada’s top general at the time, probably said it best a few years ago:

“This investment is one that we think will be here for us and for allies,” Henault said.

“It’s a good investment in the long-term prospects that we have for Afghanistan. And ultimately we may find ourselves back here again if that’s what government decides to do.”

Sounds pretty eery, if you ask me.

Immigrants send money to their homeland

Before people get their knickers tied up in a knot over the news that so many immigrants send money out of Canada, just remember: at most, it is just paper exclusively produced in Canada.

Immigrants should be free to do whatever they want with their own wealth. If foreigners value Canadian paper, so be it.

A Toronto university economics professor said this “cash leakage” has little effect on the Canadian economy, which reportedly has a GDP of about $1.6 trillion.

“It’s definitely a positive from a global social perspective because it’s allowing people in these overseas countries to have food, clothing, shelter — things they wouldn’t be able to get any other way,” York University professor Perry Sadorsky said Wednesday. “But from a Canadian perspective, it’s money that is leaking out of the country that could be spent here.”

Consumer industries such as cellphone companies, car and electronic manufacturers and restaurants are the ones that suffer most when money is sent away. Sadorsky predicts that with the direction the global economy is going, this trend of financially supporting family overseas is not going to stop.

Cash leakage? Suffering when money is sent away??? Shame on Perry Sadorsky for feeding such a myopic representation of economics. What about the welfare of the Canadian immigrants? The arbitrary accounting methods of Gross Domestic Product do not have an entry for all things that comprise welfare and value. That is why it is called Gross.

Immigrants have freely chosen to send their money away over all other choices. They have demonstrated their preferences over cellphones, cars, electronics and restaurants. Denying free choice would be bad.

You can look at things from a different way: sending money overseas is exporting inflation.

If all of that money was spent in Canada, the alleviated “suffering” of the “industries such as cellphone companies, car and electronic manufacturers and restaurants” could go hand in hand with inflated prices for the Canadian consumer!

Things could be worse: the immigrants could let their money sit in a Canadian bank account. That would lead the banks to increase lending further increasing the money supply and contributing to inflation.

Guru Lucky Foods: It Only Looks Imported

A little story for you, to begin.

I was in my local Jimmy Pattison food store (could be Overwaitea, or Save On Foods or PriceSmart - who knows these days?  It’s much less confusing shopping for groceries in other provinces besides BC), and I am wandering up the “international” food aisle - which here in Surrey means 10% Chinese, 10% Mexican, 10% other miscellaneous south Asian national cuisine, packaged America, and 70% Indian.  I pass by their snack foods, and I say to myself, dang!  Dried peas and peanuts, with chili powder and salt sounds dang good!  I grab a bag of Guru Lucky Peas and Peanuts.  Mmmm good!

Bear with me, I am getting there…

So I didn’t do the whole bag at once (400 grams is a lot of chili powder!), and so this afternoon, after returning from work, I figure to down a few handfuls.

Now, I am trying to lose a few pounds so it occurs to me that maybe this stuff is better for me than a bag of Lays.  So I decide to check the ingredients - huh!  No legally mandated nutritional information label!  That’s odd.

Now, I know from experience in buying other imported foods (I love trying foods from different cultures) that when food is imported, they often stick a sticker with the nutritional information on it, since it isn’t mandated in the country of origin.  I read on the bag further this sweet description of the contents:

Our snack are made from natural ingredients which occurs in nature naturally, we take great care and strict control in preparing our snack line to ensure that you enjoy the Indian authentic taste.

Yes, that was one sentence.  The lack of connectives between sentence parts is there in the original.  So is the switch of plural to singular, and the thrice-used natural ascription.

I begin to doubt the veracity of their claims to “great care and strict control” since it was obviously not exercised with their packaging.

But wait, there’s more.

Today, using only the highest quality nutritious ingredient, the snacks are processed in dedicated batches with the help of art equipment to ensure consistent taste and uniform flavor.

Again with the case switching.  I am not sure what art equipment is or how it bears on the production of foodstuffs.  Also note the American spelling.  Odd, for an Indian company that would use British spelling.

We’re not quite done yet.

Furthermore, to preserve the original freshness and crispness of these high quality snacks, we use specially designed packaging technology to ensure you enjoy our snack as if it were prepared today.

We continue with awkward sentence structure.  But now interwoven with more claims to diligence (made doubtful by the awful grammar used) we have a claim that a “specially designed packaging technology” was used in sealing…

An ordinary plastic bag, different only in colour from any other potato chip or tortilla bag in North America.

Maybe it’s different over in India, or wherever they produced this product?

Let’s check the address.

Manufactured by H.B. Kayson’s, Ltd.

Unit #107, 12332 Patullo Place

Surrey, BC Canada V3V 8C3

So in summary, a local, Canadian company produced a snack food that makes at least two false claims in its bag, atrocious English given the company is based in Canada and staffed by Canadians, and neglects to comply with the mandatory law requiring the display of nutritional information on the bag.  They didn’t just forget a sticker - it should have been right on the bag.

Last time I checked, “cultual mosaic” doesn’t mean ignore language and nutritional laws.  Nor does it mean you can get away with lying in your packaging.

UPDATE: Yup, their website is just as bad with the grammar.  Company started in Canada in 1988.  Apparently 20 years isn’t long enough to hire someone who can write English properly in the labelling.

No Safe Haven For Investments in Europe

After Charles’ comments about impending doom on the USA, and his recommendation of Europe as an alternative place to invest, I was gratified to see my remarks backed up today by reports about a Spanish housing market collapse and Europe teetering closer to a recession than even America.

According to the piece, Europe dealt with a 4% inflation rate right now, despite the soaring value of the Euro.  Contrast this with America’s average, running almost the same.

As I said before - the only safe investment right now is in human capital, but as a society we’re intent on aborting away our future and leaving it in the hands of those few places in the world which are still growing - on the backs of polygamy and oppression of women.  That old song lyric from the 80’s “children are our future” rings hollow in the me-centered, narcissistic culture we fawn over, but yet where else can you put your treasure?

Get out of the US dollar before it is too late!

Anybody who wants to preserve any savings they may have should get out of the US dollar. Buy gold or silver instead. Buy anything that is real. If you want stocks, buy something that everybody wants — like beer. If you want a fiat currency, I would recommend converting into Euro because that place seems to have a predictable track record and more of the oil suppliers are moving towards the Euro too — that is a good sign.

The central bankers are cluelessly scrambling as if they are powerless. Macroeconomics is pretty simple: in the short term, printing money redistributes wealth but in the long run, screws up the economy while the poor suffer from price inflation or interest rate hikes. Statesmen just try to find creative ways of hiding their fault. If they repeat things long enough, everybody gets suckered into believing them. Here is the best ruse:

The root of the economic problem remains the fallout from the imploding housing bubble.

No!! The root of the economic problem is the central banks printing money. To stay viable, the commercial banks had no choice but to make more loans available to consumers otherwise they would lose business to their competing banks. It is unfortunate but that is how a market economy works. Market economies are great except for when governments distort them. The governments and the central banks are at fault. The housing bubble is a natural result of the monetary policy.

Inflation is rising, American banks are going bankrupt and here is the most frightening thing: acting upon this knowledge is soon becoming a crime.

Some people are rushing to withdraw their money for fear of losing it. Well, it does not really matter whether they withdraw their money now or not. If their bank suffers from a run, they will get their money back through FDIC protection:

A day after reports of losses by regional banks, causing some depositors to pull their money out, Mr. Bush held an unscheduled news conference at which he felt compelled to remind Americans that their deposits were insured up to $100,000.

“My hope is that people take a deep breath and realize that their deposits are protected by our government,” the president said.

— by printing more and more money. The sad truth is that people who pull out their dollars early will still lose in the end because of inflation if they keep holding dollars. The inflated money supply will debase the value of the currency anyway.

As for Canadians specifically, go vacation down in the States. Right now, taxes and the price of gasoline are still lower there.

McGuinty’s forest plan to save the world… and industry

The news of McGuinty’s recent foray into saving the world from Global Warming and/or Climate Change has reached Europe but they do not hear his superficial public relations exercises as often as we do:

“It’s our responsibility as global citizens to get this right, and to act now,” McGuinty said.

Wow! I am starting to feel better already!

All I see from this recent announcement is a hidden delay in any future commitment to protect the boreal forest with a token appeal to the aboriginal population tossed into the mix. I find it despicable that he would use the recent environmental fad as his main talking point:

The Ontario government says protecting this region is key to its plan to fight climate change. The forests and peat lands in the Far North store about 97 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide and absorb around 12.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, the government said.

If I owned the boreal forest, I would aim to protect it for its own sake not for the sake of protecting the world from climate change. That is why I think this is just smoke and mirrors again from a Liberal government. It sounds to me like new logging and mining contracts are in the works and the government has to lessen the blow:

Mining generated about $11 billion in Ontario in 2007, and McGuinty said he was confident the consultations on the new protected area of the forest won’t cause any damage to the growing sector.

“We don’t want to compromise that, but we do want to ensure that our mining efforts in the province of Ontario are respectful of Ontarians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike.”

I think Gord is right:

The troubling part of the story as I first heard it is that it will take 10+ years to map out what area is to be declared off-limits. For the industries this is bad because it throws an incredible amount of uncertainty into their future planning.
—SNIP—
The idea is good. And admittedly discernment is needed to determine which areas to preserve. But 10 years is too long. Too long to wait, too much uncertainty.

Yes, that delay is troubling. However, the cynic in me says those ten years are long enough to sneak in government favoritism before these hypothetical future restrictions come into effect — sneak in contracts that would not bode well with the landowners nor with the public.

Dan McTeague holds a magical solution to reduce oil prices

Dan McTeague seems pretty clever when it comes to predicting oil prices a day in advance. He has his own calculation. Now, he has a magical solution to actually lower the prices!

Recent media reports indicated that the European Union has agreed to publish weekly reports on how much oil they have in reserve in order to reassure market traders and potentially cool rocketing oil prices. Currently, most EU countries publish information on their oil reserves on a monthly basis. As the French finance minister stated: more transparency on actual oil stocks means we can have a consistent and coherent picture of what is happening in the oil market.

So, let me see if I get the “picture” here. Publishing oil reserves on a monthly basis will reduce panic and then reduce prices. Right. Well, that certainly sounds bizarre. If an MP for Pickering-Scarborough East can calculate the prices on his blackberry, what more should be done? The market seems transparent enough.

Maybe Dan McTeague can offer an explanation about how publishing these monthly figures is going to make a difference. Let me guess, this is just preparation for a future legacy project if — God forbid — the Liberals ever become the government again.

Prentice, “Bell, Telus must explain charges…”

Telus and Bell should explain the additional charges to their customers, and justify the action to their shareholders. They clearly do not have to explain themselves to the Industry Minister.

OTTAWA — Industry Minister Jim Prentice is taking Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility to task for their plans to charge their wireless customers for each incoming text message to the cellphones unless they subscribe to a product bundle.

Incoming text messages have been free.

Mr. Prentice says he believes the decision to begin charging for incoming text messages is ill-thought out and will harm consumers.

Perhaps Prentice and Jim “I hate ATM banking fees” Flaherty should brush up on the concept of laissez-faire economics.

Garth, Different Species and Two Different Types of Communication…

I have to apologize to Greg in advance since his requested title policy for this blog really won’t fit well tonight as I attempt to do some bullet-point blogging on a few different stories that have come up recently and deserve commenting on:

1)The Garth — Got the reception that he deserved for the “Screw the West, We’ll Take the Rest” redux. I hope he doesn’t come back to tell us he’s inclusive the next time a homosexual agenda issue comes up, but if he does, it won’t be the first time he’ll be caught directly lying to Canadians. That last note makes his quote from today all the more amusing (emphasis added):

For writing and acting in defence of my country, for opposing those who put self interests before Canada, for the decisions I have made, and the consequences they have yielded, I regret nothing.

Who knew Turner had such self-hatred?

2) Regarding the most recent evolution post, “Tom” has actually posted alleged proof for macroevolution (the effort is appreciated). Two problems though; First, after being told repeatedly by PZ Myers’ fanboys that we’ve had proof for years, this opening statement from Tom’s article doesn’t sound too compatible (emphasis really added!):

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

So, before June 9th of this year, would Darwinists have happened to have been acting on some level of faith or is the article, written by a well-respected science publication, just wrong and in need of serious correction? Secondly, I’m happy that the bacteria have discovered some new munchies, but as was brushed upon in the definition of a species argument, can we indicate if these lemon-sucking bacteria are in fact a completely different species from their brethren and not just hungrier?

3) I cannot sit by any longer when it comes to Harris-Decima. The Toronto Star’s resident polling firm (that should tell you a lot about their credibility right there!) has been doing weekly polls recently that indicate a trend in which the Harper Government is now on par with dog food in popularity questions they ask. However, their latest butcher job shows over 60% of Canadians preferring massive carbon taxes if

the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels

.

That’s a big if to be assuming there, and one that even I would agree with, were I actually polled. However, I thought the article the quote appears in was called Canadians want climate action now, poll suggests, not (oh, I don’t know), Canadians want action now to end addiction to high gas prices, addiction to oil, poll suggests. Oh, The Star…

4)Finally, it’s always cute to see the NDP attempt to orchestrate some sort of public backlash via the government. Of course, what will really happen is that NDP will fail but consumers will take care of themselves by canceling phone plans and the sort. The phone carriers might think that their government-mandated cartel creates a highway robbery scenario, but there are still millions of us non-mobile Canadians who make do just fine without cells, and it’ll stay that way until someone approaches us with a reasonable cell phone plan!

SEE ALSO: Joanne indicates she’ll be first blood if the new texting fees come in; looks like you got a winner here guys! Right From Alberta also noticed an interesting point about the NDP’s petition to stop these fees.

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